Sucker Punch Productions' Ghost of Tsushima was one of the last exclusives for the fan-beloved PS4 before the PS5 released. The game continued Sony's first-party theme of delivering narrative-driven, single-player focused experiences that mostly became critical darlings. Ghost of Tsushima is a unique open-world experience aimed at absorbing the minute details rather than checking a list of boxes. The game looks fantastic on even the base PlayStation 4, before the PS5 was ushered in a few months later.
The PlayStation 5 launch games came swinging out the gates with a bunch of great titles to while away the time, as fans gear up for what's in store for the future. The relatively recent release of Ghost of Tsushima implies that many fans could be waiting for a PS5 version in order to experience the game for the first time.
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The console already shows great promise, and if the Ghost of Tsushima PS5 upgrade rumors are to be believed, fans may see an upgraded version for PS5 soon, which opens a bunch of possibilities for enhancing the experience for veterans and new-comers alike. Fans will be pleased to know that, even without any developer patches, the PS5 version of the game is arguably the best place to experience the game. Should fans load the PS4 version of the game into the new machine, they will instantly notice a lot of obvious improvements. The PS4 Pro's version of the game comes loaded with two graphical configurations - quality and performance. Performance mode seems to lock the game at a native 1080p resolution with a 30fps cap, while quality bumps it up to a checkerboarded 1800p with a target of 30fps.
The game runs smoothly enough on both of these presets, with the quality mode exhibiting some minor framerate dips every now and then. Running the same game on the PS5 with the quality mode enabled bumps the framerate to a rock-solid 60fps, and the difference is just night and day. Ghost of Tsushima's world looks the best on the PS5 along with a performance boost, with no caveats attached. This is good enough for most players, but there are possibilities of even more, such as seeing Ghost of Tsushima running at 4K 60FPS.
Many would agree that a lot more can be achieved with the power of PS5 than these basics. The game's performance mode, in particular, makes no sense on the PS5 as it is a compromise in both the visuals and the framerate. If Sucker Punch does deliver an upgraded version anytime soon, it'd be great to see even higher framerates, such as up to 120fps with some resolution tradeoff. This would go a long way in emphasizing performance of Ghost Tsushima on PS5.
As gorgeous as Ghost of Tsushima looks, the lighting and post-processing effects can surely receive a noticeable boost in quality without sacrificing any performance, especially on the higher resolutions. The new consoles also feature hardware-accelerated ray-tracing which is a phenomenal improvement, as seen in games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The new DualSense controller also opens a bunch of possibilities for improvements. Demon's Souls remake, in particular, uses it to help players gauge a sense of timings, which can be translated in some way or another into Ghost of Tsushima. The improved framerates dramatically improve the fluidity and responsiveness of the combat, and better feedback will surely add a lot to the experience.
Ghost of Tsushima's free co-op add-on, titled Ghost of Tsushima: Legends gives players a lot of reasons to come back to this game, possibly on their new consoles. The upgrades, if implemented, are likely to take the already joyous experience to even greater heights.
Ghost of Tsushima is available now on PS4.
